Category: General

I’ve had discussions with people on differen issues (term limits being one) where a common argument used is how we need “experts” in the legilature, not the common folk. The assumption is that laws are passed by a well oiled machine. Or if not a well oiled machine, than by competent people. Or if not competent people, then at least people who read what they are going to vote on at least.

If that happens to you, bring up this gem. While your at it, remind them about this.

There is a group that is trying to get a constitutional amendment passed that would require:

1. a public reading of all bills before they are voted on.
2. seven day public notice before a vote takes place.

This would, in theory, eliminate sneak, late night voting when members are not in Washington and would all but eliminate enormous bills with line item spending if a quarum of members have to sit and listen to the bill being read.

You’ve probably seen the TV ads where some product (usually a cleaning product) will show how another product works and then reclean the same thing and kick the previous product’s ass. Usually, its a load of crap, but today I had an experience which belongs on a commercial.

My house has a central vacuum system. For the most part its pretty nice, but the attachment that lets me vacuum the rug is only so-so. Seeing that I’m moving anyhow and wont have a central vacuum anymore, I figure I should get a decent carpet vac. I bought a Dyson.

Holy crap.

I vacummed the same exact I just vacuumed before and it picked up a ton of crap. Crap from what looked like a perfectly clean carpet. It was amazing. There are very few product I’ve ever been blown away by, but the Dyson is one. If you are going to buy a vacuum cleaner, spend the extra money and get a Dyson.

Dyson: it sucks hard.

I won my small NCAA pool, even though Illinois lost in finals. Had they won, I would have had 155 out of 192 points. I’m a amzed I won even considering I didn’t get the 32 points for the final game. When your in a pool with 1/2/4/8/16/32 scoring, to win you pretty much have to pick the winner to have a chance. Picking the winner is the same as picking all the first round games.

Is anyone interested in doing a fantasy baseball league online?

I’ve changed the layout of the site to a three columns and moved the version number of the site to 4.1. I like how everything is arranged, but I don’t like the colors, so I’ll monkey with that a bit.

I’m going to take the plunge and go to a dual boot linux/XP set up on my main computer. If anyone has suggestions as to what distribution I should use, I’m open to suggestions.